Abstract

Phase transformation and pyroelectric behavior of (PNZST) and (PLZST) antiferroelectric (AFE) thin films were investigated as a function of temperature and dc bias field. A large pyroelectric coefficient of the order of was realized at the ferroelectric (FE) to AFE and the AFE to FEphase transformations in the PLZST and PNZST films, respectively. The phase transformation temperature could be readily adjusted by dc bias for both films. The large pyroelectric coefficient combined with excellent dc tunability at the phase transformation temperature makes these two systems promising candidates for uncooled tunable pyroelectric thermal sensing applications.

Received 28 December 2005Accepted 02 March 2006Published online 31 March 2006

Acknowledgments:

The work described in this letter was primarily supported by a grant from the City University of Hong Kong (Project No. 7001464). One of the authors (J.Z.) would like to acknowledge the support from Shanghai Pujiang Program and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No. 50572071, and the National 973-project under Grant No. 2002CB613304 to complete some experiments and final data analysis. Another author (H.C.) would like to acknowledge the National Science Council of Taiwan under Grant No. 94-2218-E-029-001 for its partial support.